Pushing intelligence to the edge also means, “data will stay local, and it will provide better privacy, latency, security, lower cost, better bandwidth and utilization,” he said.

All of this will be made possible by inexpensive neural networks running on a variety of sensors and other devices.

DARPA IOT super efficient sensors

Through N-ZERO, DARPA wants to make sensors phenomenally more efficient in how they draw power when not actually sensing something of interest. The goal is to use less than 10 nanowatts (nW) during the sensor’s asleep-yet-aware phase—an energy drawdown roughly equivalent to the self-discharge (battery discharge during storage) of a typical watch battery, and at least 1,000 times lower than state-of-the-art sensors. Specifically, N-ZERO seeks to extend unattended sensor lifetime from weeks to years, cut costs of maintenance and the need for redeployments. Alternatively, N-ZERO could also reduce battery size for a typical ground-based sensor by a factor of 20 or more while still keeping its current operational lifetime.

The N-ZERO program has three phases. The first, which ended December 2016, took 15 months to complete. The second and third phases will each take one year. Some research teams achieved goals in the program’s first phase that they were expected to reach much later.

DARPA has been able to create zero-power receivers that can detect very weak signals — less than 70 decibel-milliwatt radio-frequency (RF) transmissions, a measure that is better than originally expected.

The system has also been able to detect objects correctly without raising a false alarm, which can crimp battery life. In the program’s current phase, the sensors need to distinguish between cars, trucks and generators in an urban environment at a close range and in the final phase, they will be required to classify those same targets from 10 meters (33 feet).

“The ability to sense and classify cars, trucks and generators in … both rural and urban backgrounds from a distance of a little over 5 meters away and being able to do that with almost 10 nanowatts of power consumption is a big accomplishment in phase one of the program,” Olsson says.